Feasibility study of fuel cell-hybrid powertrains in non-road mobile machineries

•We model five fuel cell-hybrid powertrain cases and compare their features.•These powertrain topologies are options for non-road mobile machineries.•We evaluate features as size, weight, cost, and efficiency of powertrains.•Conclusions provide optimization targets for features of powertrains.•Detailed descriptions for methodologies of assessments are given.

This paper presents a powertrain feasibility study for a fuel cell-hybrid non-road mobile machinery. The objective is to compare different fuel cell-hybrid powertrain topologies. Different hybrid topologies define the powertrain from a source to loads. The compared properties of different powertrains are weight, size, efficiency, initial cost, and lifetime cost. The paper assesses topologies with different active and passive connections of a battery pack, ultracapacitor pack, or both. The comparison of the topologies needs a validated simulation tool, specific power control algorithms, and detailed knowledge about the target application. The results conclude that fuel cell powertrains buffered with a high-power battery pack yield minimum weight and size. However, minimum lifetime costs are obtained by topologies buffered with an ultracapacitor, which, on the other hand, increase weight and size. Furthermore, there are cost effective buffering combinations of a battery and ultracapacitor in comparison to topologies buffered with a high-energy battery.